Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Ravi Shankar Has Two Famous Musical Daughters

Ravi Shankar was already famous before the Concert for Bangladesh, but
one must admit that the event helped make him more popular in the western
world. That night, he took the stage and proceeded to spend roughly three minutes
tuning up his sitar. When he was finished tuning, the crowd gave him a standing
ovation. That was how little (some western) people knew of that style of
music.

Shankar was first married at age 21 to a fourteen year old girl
named Annapurna Devi. I’m assuming
that the marriage was arranged, but it did last over twenty years. They
produced one son. That son also played sitar. His son died in the 1990’s. Shankar also had
two daughters who both went on to musical fame.
Anoushka Shankar was born in 1981, and went on to play sitar. She is well known for her work in classical
Indian music. The pair did play together
from time to time.

The Birth Of Norah Jones

Ravi is also
the father of Norah Jones. Back in the
late 1970’s, Ravi was still married when he
met Sue Jones, a concert promoter. They went on to produce one child, and named
her Norah. Norah went on to win a number
of Grammy awards in the same year that her half sister Anoushka won a single
Grammy for her work in the field of World Music.

As the decades
passed, Shankhar stayed active in the world music scene. He did all this while
taking care of a heart problem that first surfaced back in 1973. He produced an amazing musical score for the
movie Gandhi in 1982. He became a member
of the Indian parliament in 1992, and that same year he underwent heart
surgery. As the 1990’s came to a close, Ravi was performing over two dozen shows per year.

He spent the next
ten years teaching his daughter Anoushka how to play the sitar, and toured with
her off and on. He made hints of retiring in 2008, but was compelled to play
again in 2011. He was last on stage just
this past November, when he played along with Anoushka in California.